Archive for Mike McKenna

Pat Blythe – Openings, Bands and Music…Playing Catch-Up….

Posted in Opinion, Review with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 25, 2017 by segarini

Openers…….

Today is a bright but chilly October day. (great opening line huh?) Then there’s Snoopy’s book opening….“It was a dark and stormy night.” Okay, how about “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” (Tales of Two Cities – Charles Dickens) Or, “It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” (Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen) THAT was a different time….most definitely. Then there’s, “It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.” (Earthly Powers – Anthony Burgess). I can’t even begin to imagine explaining that one. How about, “I write this sitting at the kitchen sink”. (Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith). That’s sure to grab attention…..and apparently it did. “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs and I don’t know what I was doing in New York.” (The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath). Confused, frustrated, a chronic depressive, Plath committed suicide by sticking her head in a gas oven at the very young age of 30, leaving behind two young children. “You’ve no choice, look back.” (The Story of Hansel and Gretel – Louise Murphy) We must learn from the past. “It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.” (1984 – George Orwell) Canada’s pants would do well to pay attention. Apparently they’re not paying attention to Hansel or Gretel.

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Roxanne Tellier – Grant Fullerton … King of the Road

Posted in Opinion, Review with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 29, 2016 by segarini

Roxanne

In 1967, the Song of the Year was “Canada” by The Young Canada Singers. I was a geeky, gawky Montreal teen with cats eye glasses and a bad perm. My season’s pass to Expo 67 made me feel like a citizen of the world.

But in Toronto, another kind of world was coming together; one of young, talented musicians who’d flocked to Yorkville to find fame, if not fortune.

Grant Fullerton was one of them.

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Roxanne Tellier – Mike McKenna, Guitar Legend

Posted in Opinion, Review with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 15, 2016 by segarini

Roxanne

1969 or maybe early 1970.A darkened Montreal rec room, outside sound dulled by faux wood paneling and shag carpeting, with the ubiquitous mirrored bar off to the side. My girlfriend, Colleen, and I slink into the room, prepared to be kicked out by her big brother Bill, the music maven of her family, if we giggled too much.If we behaved, we’d be allowed to listen, at least for a while, to the new record Bill had brought home to enjoy with some of his cooler (and older, so therefore hotter)  friends.  We crept into the darkness, wide eyed.

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Segarini: In Praise of Older Musicians Redux

Posted in Opinion with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 18, 2012 by segarini

Originally posted April 16th, 2012 and Updated, December 18th, 2012. Thanks for your patience…Part 3 of Segarini: Stockton, Daring-Do, and Cruising the Miracle Mile, Living American Graffiti and Pacific Avenue, will be up (finally), this coming weekend. Nadia’s latest column will be up later this afternoon.

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Bob FacebookLast April….

I had to drag my sorry ass down to the nearest RBC last night to deposit some money (collected from my roommates and I here at the DeMilo Arms) so that when Hydro Ontario sucks their tithe out of the account Monday morning, there’s actually enough in there to insure heat and light for the next little while. Not only heat and light, but how would I be able to use the blender to make banana daiquiris without their damn electricity? I really must teach the kitties to run on the little kitty treadmills to charge the generator so we can get off the grid…according to my calculations, we only need another 1411 kitties (and kitty treadmills) to be totally self-sufficient.

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Segarini: In Praise of Older Musicians

Posted in Opinion with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2012 by segarini

I had to drag my sorry ass down to the nearest RBC last night to deposit some money (collected from my roommates and I here at the DeMilo Arms) so that when Hydro Ontario sucks their tithe out of the account Monday morning, there’s actually enough in there to insure heat and light for the next little while. Not only heat and light, but how would I be able to use the blender to make banana daiquiris without their damn electricity? I really must teach the kitties to run on the little kitty treadmills to charge the generator so we can get off the grid…according to my calculations, we only need another 1411 kitties (and kitty treadmills) to be totally self-sufficient.

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